Recent surveys on the leisure time of the French paint a more nuanced picture than simple lists of popular activities. Rather than piling up leisure ideas, this article compares the major categories of practices, measures the gaps between generations and genders, and identifies trends that are reshaping how we spend our moments of relaxation.
Screen time, reading, sports: how French leisure is distributed
Comparing leisure practices requires looking beyond activity rankings. The available data allows for the intersection of three axes: digital, reading, and sports.
| Leisure Category | Recent Trend | Key Fact |
|---|---|---|
| Screens (streaming, gaming, social media) | Daily time slightly decreasing among the youth | About 10 minutes less per day compared to 2024 among young people (CNL study 2026) |
| Leisure reading | Stable | 81% of young people report reading for leisure (CNL 2026, reported by Lecture Jeunesse) |
| Regular sports | Increasing, strong convergence between men and women | The gap in regular practice between men and women is now only one point in 2025, down from six points seven years earlier |
This table highlights a rarely discussed point: the opposition between screens and so-called enriching activities is dissolving. Young people are spending slightly less time in front of their screens without abandoning reading.
To delve deeper into each category and find ideas suited to your profile, exploring leisure on Le Tour de la Question helps situate these trends in a practical framework.
Sports practice in France: a convergence between men and women
Sports as a leisure activity is undergoing a structural transformation. The most significant data does not concern the volume of practitioners, but the reduction of the gender gap. Only one point now separates men and women in regular sports practice.
This narrowing, which has occurred in less than a decade, is changing the composition of audiences in gyms, parks, and sports associations. The consequences are concrete:
- Time slots reserved or dedicated to a single gender are losing relevance in many municipal sports structures
- The outdoor sports offering (running, hiking, cycling) now attracts a nearly equal mixed population
- Home sports applications, which have exploded since the pandemic, are capturing a female audience that did not frequent traditional clubs
This convergence is also changing the nature of demand. Family and couple activities are growing because both partners share a comparable level of commitment to sports.
Digital leisure: the decrease in screen time among youth does not mean rejection
The study by the National Book Center (CNL) for 2026 brings a nuance that is often missing from most articles on leisure. Daily screen time is slightly decreasing among young people, but this decline does not lead to a shift towards radically different activities.
Leisure reading remains stable, suggesting that young people are reallocating part of their screen time towards less time-consuming digital forms (short podcasts, casual mobile gaming) rather than towards physical or manual activities.
Casual gaming, an underestimated leisure activity in rankings
Lists of popular leisure activities rarely mention casual mobile gaming. However, it is a massive practice, often invisible in surveys because it is not perceived as a “real” leisure activity by those who engage in it. Casual gaming redefines the boundary between break and active leisure, occupying micro-moments (transport, waiting in line) that other activities cannot capture.
Holidays and nature outings: closer, cheaper choices
Data on the holidays of the French in 2025-2026 confirm a shift that has been underway for several years: trips are shorter, closer, and less expensive. This trend is not limited to budget constraints. Slow travel, focused on local exploration and a slow pace, is gaining ground, even among travelers who can afford to go far.
This evolution is changing the nature of holiday leisure. Outdoor activities (hiking, river swimming, visiting natural parks) are taking precedence over the race for tourist sites.
Family outings and children’s activities: local takes precedence
Outings with children follow the same logic. Regional amusement parks, educational farms, and water leisure centers are capturing an increasing share of family budgets. The criterion of proximity weighs as heavily as the quality of the offering in choosing a weekend outing.
Free or low-cost activities in nature (picking, birdwatching, organized picnics) are returning to habits, driven by a dual engine: the search for contact with nature and budget management.
What the data reveals about leisure choices in 2026
The major trends converge towards the same observation. The most practiced leisure activity is not the most visible: casual mobile gaming reaches more people than most sports, leisure reading is holding up better than expected, and sports practice is becoming more uniform between genders at a speed few anticipated.
The classic framework, which opposes active and passive leisure or screens and the outdoors, is losing relevance. The French combine these categories throughout the same day, depending on available micro-time slots.
The choice of leisure depends less on a declared taste than on context: available duration, location, presence or absence of children, weekly budget. It is this contextual reading, rather than a list, that helps understand how free time is actually filled.